MSNBC elevates Nicolle Wallace to be the heart of the network’s midday programming

Todd, who will continue as host of “Meet the Press” on Sunday mornings on NBC, will also begin anchoring a new weekly show in September that will air on streaming news service NBC News Now and the company’s Peacock streaming platform.

Wallace’s “Deadline: White House” show has been something of a ratings success story for the network. In July, the show bested its 4 p.m. competitors on both Fox News and CNN in total viewers, with an average of 2 million people tuning in each day. (Though it came in third in the 25-to-54 viewer demographic, which is most valued by advertisers.)

Wallace, 48, has risen to acclaim as a strident critic of President Trump. With her background as a former communications staffer in George W. Bush’s White House, she serves as confirmation for the network’s more liberal viewers that even some on the political right have broken with the president, an MSNBC group that also includes network contributor Steve Schmidt, a longtime Republican strategist who left the party in 2018.

Wallace joined the network in 2016 as a contributor and got her own show a year later. (The network would not make her available for an interview.)

The network also announced that Ayman Mohyeldin will anchor the 3 p.m. hour daily, a spot that opened up when anchor Ali Velshi recently moved to a two-hour block on Saturday and Sunday mornings with a new show called “Velshi.”

Todd’s “Meet the Press” has been incredibly successful, leading the way in both total viewers and advertiser-friendly demographic for the past three months against broadcast news competitors “This Week” on ABC and “Face the Nation” on CBS.

But “MTP Daily,” his daily weekday show, has struggled against 5 p.m. competitors “The Five” on Fox News, the ratings leader, and the first hour of CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” in the key demo.

Monday’s programming changes are just the latest schedule tweaks for the network, which last month installed Joy Reid as the network’s 7 p.m. successor to Chris Matthews, who abruptly resigned in March.

With the presidential election three months away, the network appears to have cemented its daily lineup.